Despite its ubiquity, carrot cake is actually one of the more challenging bakes. It's easy to make but hard to make superbly. And one of the biggest roadblocks to a sublime carrot cake is the moistness.
It's really frustrating to put that much work into a cake only to have it turn out dry and crumbly. The carrots are partially to blame. They don't have much moisture compared to other veggies as is, but they also dry out really quickly after you shred them, creating loads of surface area for moisture to evaporate from.
You could shred your carrots at the last minute and buy a special jug of buttermilk you aren't going to finish, but a recipe with hurdles is a recipe you won't use. Fortunately, there's an easier way. Adding some high-moisture shredded zucchini to your tried-and-true carrot cake recipe can help it stay moist and tender for days.
And thanks to the green vegetable's neutral flavor, it lets the sweet, earthy flavor of the carrots and mesmerizing aroma of warming spices come through as strongly as they always have. How to use zucchini in carrot cake You can substitute up to half the carrots (by volume) in your carrot cake for zucchini. Just peel and grate the zucchini on the smallest grating holes or food processor disk.
You don't want the zucchini to stand out in any way or create unnecessary texture. Using the smallest grating size means the moist inner flesh disappears into the cake. It may seem counterintuitive, but you also need to drain the zucchini using a fi.
